I recently up-ed an album onto FB with pictures of some of the entertainment I encountered at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. There were several fire tricks (breathing and eating), jousting, comedy, song, and even a belly-dancer, dancing to drums and bag-pipes and men in kilts.

That album was meant to highlight the entertainers and their booths/stages/performances (in effect, the stated reason one pays admission to such an event). With this blog, however, I would like to briefly examine some of the non-performing (but none-the-less quite entertaining) individuals at the Renaissance.

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Top – Lovely Busty-ness, found in abundance at RenFestBottom – R & L: two varieties of Winged-Creature (presumably Fairy)

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A small lunch gathering of the Horned-Head & Discoloured Face Society.

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As my uncle, primarily an engineer, stated upon entering the throngs of festival-goers, “I am capable of understanding quite complex equations and theoretical possibilities, but this place we are about to enter is a place of Art, and of Art, I understand very little.” This was shortly followed by the humble request, “Will you be my interpreter and guide?*”

I, of course, readily agreed, and then just as readily forgot my newfound duties of guiding and interpreting upon entering the gates. Because really, such a festival is a thing to behold in its entirety and not through a chattering commentary or an ongoing explanation.

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However, with no explanation to help form his opinions, my uncle began spiraling further and further into confusion. Somewhere near the end of the day, he again pulled me aside. “Robert,” he said, “today I have seen creatures of many shapes and colors. While some reside in the realm of the Fantastic, others are as simple as the contradictory imagery of an otherwise clean girl wearing battered clothing and dread-locks. These folk carry weapon-ry and dis-regard social rules of etiquette and civilty. A certain Mania possesses their call-and-response antics, and they bear no sign of the fabled Rational-Man. At each turn, I encounter something New and Bizarre, but what confounds me the greatest is the realisation that amid the Cacophony of Lusty Bossoms and mis-placed Scally-Wags, at no point is it likely to find two beings from the same era.”

To this, I pondered, reflected, and replied, “You’re right.”

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Because really that’s precisely what the Renaissance Festival is. A completely non-sensical amalgam of discontinuous qualities. A place of Fantasy, Imagined Past, and otherwise Desired Remembrance. A scurry of percieved spontenaity that repeats itself day after day throughout the months and years. A place where the Sharp-Witted Imbecile can converse with the Haughty Noble-Man fearing only temporary rebut in the form of Infantile Fecal Humour.

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To all this, I say, “Huzzah!”

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*while in quotes, I was not taking notes, so be wary that all above “statements” are actually paraphrased or purely composed for the sake of this blog.